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Primary Documents - Arthur Balfour on the Execution of Captain Fryatt, August 1916

On 28 March 1915 Captain
Charles Fryatt, a British merchant captain, attempted - but failed - to ram
and sink a German submarine, U-33. This came in the wake of
repeated attempts by the German navy to sink his vessel - the Great Eastern
Railway Steamer Brussels sailing the Rotterdam/British east coast
route.

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Hailed by the Allied
nations as a hero - it was variously believed that he had succeeded in his
patriotic act, Fryatt was officially rewarded by the British government for
his actions.

Fryatt was however taken
prisoner by the Germans on a subsequent voyage and charged with being a
franc-tireur
- a most serious charge and one that carried the death sentence. So
began a war of words between the German and British governments over his
case. Britain argued that Fryatt had been acting in self-defence,
while Germany maintained that Fryatt's action in attempting to ram U-33
was undertaken without provocation.

In the event Fryatt was
tried and convicted by a German court and executed on 27 July 1916.
The case achieved widespread notoriety in Britain and Captain Fryatt's name
- and face, in newspapers, magazines and even bookmarks - was celebrated
throughout Britain.

Click here
to read the German government's official statement following Fryatt's
execution.
Click here
to read the official British government statement on the matter.
Click here to read Germany's
reply.

Reproduced below is former
British Prime Minister
Arthur Balfour's
summary of the case.

Arthur Balfour on the
Case of Captain Fryatt

If any desire yet further
proof of the value which the Germans really attach to their "victorious"
fleet I advise them to study the German policy of submarine warfare.

The advantage of submarine
attacks on commerce is that they cannot be controlled by superior fleet
power in the same way as attacks by cruisers. The disadvantage is that
they cannot be carried out on a large scale consistently with the laws of
war or the requirements of humanity.

They make, therefore, a
double appeal to German militarism; an appeal to its prudence and an appeal
to its brutality. The Germans knew their "victorious" fleet was
useless; it could be kept safe in harbour while submarine warfare went on
merrily outside. They knew that submarines cannot be brought to action
by battleships or battle cruisers.

They thought, therefore,
that to these new commerce destroyers our merchant ships must fall an easy
prey, unprotected by our ships of war and unable to protect themselves.

They are wrong in both
respects; and doubtless it is their wrath at the skill and energy with which
British merchant captains and British crews have defended the lives and
property under their charge that has driven the German Admiralty into their
latest and stupidest act of calculated ferocity - the judicial murder of
Captain Fryatt.

I do not propose to argue
this case; it is not worth arguing. Why should we do the German
military authorities the injustice of supposing that they were animated by
any solicitude for the principles of international law, and blundered into
illegality by some unhappy accident?

Their folly was of a
different kind, and flowed from a different course. They knew quite
well that when Captain Fryatt's gallantry saved his ship, the Germans had
sunk without warning 22 British merchant ships, and had attempted to sink
many others. They knew that in refusing tamely to submit himself to
such a fate he was doing his duty as a man of courage and of honour.
They were resolved at all costs to discourage imitation!

What blunderers they are!
I doubt not their ability to manipulate machines. But of managing men,
unless it be German men, they know less than nothing. They are always
wrong; and they are wrong because they always suppose that if they behave
like brutes they can cow their enemies into behaving like cowards.

Small is their knowledge of
our merchant seamen. Their trade, indeed, is not war - they live by
the arts of peace. But in no class does patriotism burn with a purer
flame, or show itself in deeds of higher courage and self-devotion.

I doubt whether there is
one of them to be found who is not resolved to defend himself to the last
against piratical attack; but if such a one there be, depend upon it he will
be cured by the last exhibition of German civilization.

And what must the neutrals
think of all this? They are constantly assured by German advocates
that the Central Powers are fighting for the "freedom of the seas." It
is a phrase with different meanings in different mouths; but we have now had
ample opportunities of judging what it means to the Germans.

It means that the German
Navy is to behave at sea as the German Army behave on land. It means
that neither enemy civilians nor neutrals are to possess rights against
militant Germany; that those who do not resist will be drowned, and those
who do will be shot.